Computing architectures that operate efficiently and that can process large volumes of data quickly are often preferred over their counterparts. Additionally, it is often desired to operate a variety of tasks, using a variety of computer resources, simultaneously within a computer system. Accordingly, developing complex multiprocessor systems has been the subject of significant of research.
A number of data communication architectures have been developed in order to facilitate communications between cooperating components within a computer system. Various types of equipment can be used as computer components, each requiring data communication. For example, a computer system may comprise a plurality of processors, data storage units, printers, monitors, etc. A number of data communication architectures currently exist to communicate data between computer components. For example, SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface), IDE/ATA (Integrated Drive Electronics/Advanced Technology Attachment), USB (Universal Serial Bus) are common architectures used to communicate between processors, hard drives, CD-ROMs, serial data ports, etc.
These existing data communication architectures have been effective in creating a means to communicate between cooperating computer components; however, none of them are specifically designed to handle very high volumes of data at high clock frequencies (e.g., several Gigahertz). As a result of the need for higher bandwidth data communications, new communication architectures have been implemented to allow for high speed serial communications. One example is the SERDES (serializer/deserializer) data communication architecture. SERDES uses an encoder to encode data and then communicates it over one or more communication channels to a decoder for a corresponding decoding process. This architecture has proven to be an effective means to increase data communication bandwidth between cooperating computer components.
The development of high speed communication architectures has made it possible for system designers to create large, scalable computer systems. Systems such as the Superdome® system by Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto, Calif.) have been created that contain numerous processors that can be configured or partitioned into several independent sections in order to allow for each component to undertake different tasks. The amount of applications, tasks, computations, etc. that can be performed by one computer system continues to grow as the size and complexity of larger, scalable computer systems such as the Superdome® system increases.
One obstacle in the development of complex scalable systems is the difficulty in verifying design parameters and conducting efficient testing of the system. The complexity of these systems as well as the complicated nature of the communication protocols used in them makes these systems difficult to thoroughly test.